IBC Day 1: News From the Show Floor

AMSTERDAM—On the opening day of the 2017 IBC Show, Sony Electronics unveiled Venice, the next generation of the company’s CineAlta camera systems and Sony’s first Full-Frame digital motion picture camera. Thanks to a new color management system, Venice can exceed Rec. 2020 color space. In addition, its 36x24mm full frame sensor features more than 15 stops of latitude to fit challenging lighting conditions. The Venice’s image sensor captures images up to a maximum resolution of 6048 x 4032 (through a planned firmware upgrade); at the same time, Venice can natively capture in almost any format, with almost any aspect ratio, up to full-frame or Super35.

The built-in 8-stage glass ND filter system streamlines camera setup and raises the efficiency of the shooting process. Venice fits evolving businesses: Sony gives users the option to customize their camera by only enabling the features needed, according to their individual production requirements. Licenses will be available to expand the camera's capabilities with new features including 4K anamorphic and full-frame. In addition, the sensor block is interchangeable: as sensor technology advances, in the future users will have the opportunity to upgrade just the sensor, without the need to invest in a brand new camera.

Under the Vitec Group umbrella, Sachtler and Vinten introduced their flowtech lightweith 75 carbon fiber tripod, what the company calls, “a revolution in tripod technology.” Vitec says the flowtech 75 is easier and faster to deploy than any other tripod with a newly designed quick release brakes that enables the legs to be deployed simultaneously and quickly adjust to both the required height and the ground’s surface, eliminating the need to bend over or manually adjust multiple brakes on each leg. The versatile hinge lock of flowtech 75 allows extremely low, ground level shots along with higher shots, eliminating the need for carrying an extra set of baby-legs to the shoot. Thanks to its carbon fiber construction, the flowtech 75 features exceptional torsion stiffness, ensuring that the tripod won’t twist during panning movements. Tested under extreme conditions, flowtech 75 enhances both performance and reliability, with a payload capacity of 20 kg (44 lb).

Addressing increasing requirements for closed captioning, Telestream premiered Timed Text Speech, a file-based auto-transcription service for subtitling and captioning workflows. Using speech-to-text technology, artificial intelligence, and thanks to cloud-based processing, Timed Text Speech is faster-than-real-time, according to the company, and instantly creates a text transcript of a video, then populates it directly into a captioning project with the correct timing so that each phrase is automatically displayed at the right time. Designed for enhanced efficiency, Timed Text Speech allows operators to review instantaneous transcription results while the speech engine is processing the rest of the video program. Massive subtitling of large archives is also possible.

According to the company, when combined with Telestream MacCaption/CaptionMaker closed captioning software, Timed Text Speech becomes part of an all-in-one transcription and subtitling/captioning tool that allows users to easily transcribe, transcode, convert, troubleshoot, modify, and deploy caption data alongside video – regardless of the delivery platform. Timed Text Speech currently works with English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish language. Telestream says more and more languages are planned for later releases.

In the IBC Future Zone, in what the company says is a “world’s first,” Igloo Vision has launched a 360° 8K monitor. Housed inside an Igloo projection dome, the new monitor allows 360° filmmakers, content creators and developers to work across the entirety of their content without the need to wear VR headsets. It also enables production teams to work collaboratively on immersive content: each member of the team can easily point out details, see what everyone else is looking at, make eye contact, and read each other's facial expressions.

To demonstrate the capabilities of the new monitor, Igloo is live-streaming 360° 8K content from across various exhibition halls. Igloo Vision’s product line includes various types of projection domes. The 6-meter projection dome showcased at the IBC can easily accomodate up to ten people, while the 21 meters dome can host up to 750 people for large-scale simulations, as well as immersive events and corporate hospitality happenings.